Super terrible internet here in California! Greetings! I'll save photos of Muir Woods for next week. I'll save the photos of the skin on my hand, shredded. That's an overstatement - it's not really shredded - but it's a good story. At any rate, this hotel internet is SO slow, and this week SUCH an unadulterated mess, that we shall see how far exactly we get in this entry, and we'll post whatever we get. I'm not attempting any photos.

The main topics of conversation are:1. The terrible process of packing for California2. Pokey's terrible, horrible, no-good very bad week3. Hawaii's minor ear infection, and then later, her very major chigger bite infection.

The terrible process of packing for California

This is the most work it's ever taken to go on vacation. The landlady said we could store our belongings in her closet-with-a-lock, which was generous and we packed it to the gills.

We had to be out Thursday, and we didn't fly to California until Friday. So the packing categories were:- Stuff for the closet- Stuff to take up the ladder to our house, because we won't need it during the last few weeks - Stuff we're taking to California- Stuff we would need in Texas on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but not for California- Stuff we don't need on vacation, but seems valuable and we'd rather leave it at our friend's house.- Fridge stuff that seems wasteful to throw away.- Cats that must get boarded at the vet and cat paraphenalia.

It was complicated and a lot of work. One month of household living is a nontrivial amount.

Pokey's terrible, horrible, no-good very bad week

We were fully out of the house by Thursday morning. I drove to my friend's house where we were staying the night while they're out of town. I took a nice nap.

The phone rang and woke me up. It was Jammies, telling me that Pokey was getting sent home camp. He had hit and kicked a counselor. We had to meet with the director later that afternoon. She said this was the final straw in a string of incidents he'd had all week, and Pokey could not come back for the rest of the session, (which was only one more day). That with some ground rules we could try again later in the summer.

Tantrums at home have gotten worse. He threw rocks at me in one particularly memorable outdoors tantrum. "Tantrum" seems like the wrong word, as does "outburst". "Fight" seems better, except he doesn't have an opponent. But a fist-fight captures the balls-out intensity by which he'll scratch, bite, throw, destroy property, and rage however he can.

We are doing a bunch of new things in response, including upping the frequency with which he sees the therapist, putting some strict, explicit rules in place, and some incremental rewards. These things do help. It is very high-maintenance parenting. It's tiring.

Hawaii's minor ear infection, and then later, her very major chigger bite infection.

Thursday afternoon, Hawaii mentioned that her ear hurt, and so she and I went to a med clinic, and sure enough, she has an ear infection, right before flying.

Thursday night, it really dawned on me that our friends' house was packed full of fragile tchotckes. (They have two calm older daughters, age 9 and 13.) Jammies had already been advocating for a hotel over their house, lest we destroy it.

What tipped me over the edge was a mailbox: lifesize, made out of construction paper, functional and adorable. It was precariously taped to the wall, in the middle of a hallway. Sticking out unstably, as mailboxes do. Real life height, ie Rascal's eyeline, Ace's shoulder line, Pokey's chest height. There is no way that Pokey, Ace, or Rascal would be able to resist futzing with it. It would have been destroyed within ten minutes.

We all relaxed in the hotel.

On Friday afternoon, we flew to California. In the middle of the night, Hawaii woke us up, complaining about her chigger bite. She's had for a week or so. It is located fully up in her nether regions, right in the crease of where her butt meets her inner thigh. It now was swollen to the size of walnut maybe, instead of mostly flat like a regular chigger bite, and had a head of pus the size of a pencil eraser. It must have hurt a lot.